Troubleshoot Windows 7 x64 Memory leak?

[simmerskool]

Briefly explain your current issue(s)

memory leak

Steps taken to resolve, but have been unsuccessful

checked resource monitor

running win7x64 with 32 gb ram. fresh reboot the mem usage is about 3.5 gb, ie, my normal. Typically, I only reboot when necessary, I often let it run days on end. Last few days I noticed that when I came back to pc in the morning, the physical mem being used was 26 gb as viewed from killswitch, then confirmed with win7 resource monitor. But scanning the list of running processes nothing jumped out at me as hogging ALL that memory. Overnight, basically I closed most if not all apps, so I would expect pc to be using minimal resources. CPU is hardly used. I rebooted in the morning to "fix" the issue, and it reboots using about 3.5 gb mem. with chrome open to post this it is currently using 4.5 gb mem. When I looked at it last night before bed after having been used all day, it was around 7 gb. So then what happens overnight to jump it up to 26 gb of used mem? I think this is relatively new. No new installs lately, other than perhaps browser extensions and chrome was closed overnight. Is this indicative of some app with memory leak that is not obvious (to me) from resource monitor, or perhaps indicative of some very well hidden malware?? Is there a better app to track or highlight / log memory usage overnight? thanks.

 

[yitworths]

regarding cortana it may provide you a good read - Cortana. At this moment, I'm using w10 in a VM & have reduced the traffic to a very low level but it still connects to some websites on its own, may be those are benign but I ain't sure. & keep in mind that almost every possible service/process is blocked. & every update is making it harder for us to tweak it for better privacy. Today I was checking trend micro's connections by packet capturing on an un-tweaked windows 10, man I find much more windows connections to home than TM. In near future, probably ms operating systems and
spyware will be synonymous.

One guy tried to prove, that even when windows firewall blocks everything, 10 still leaks, but it proved to be fake.

I'm a bit confused by this... what is proved to be fake- the leak or the firewall blocking?

 

[Yellowing]

Well they did say it is an "operating system as a service". I assume that is what they meant. xD
Also it DOES cost nothing... it will be a fight.

Maybe they'll release a new enterprise version that does not spy. Or is there already?

 

[simmerskool]

Could it be Superfetch? It is a windows service/function. (I don't know if it was with windows 7, but 10 does have it) It writes data from the most used application into RAM (But only if there's enough free) to make them start faster when you start them. (Google it)
Try deactivating that if you have it.

Ever thought about changing to Windows 10, btw? Pro is just 5€ right now on Amazon.

running win7x64. I do have win10 on a laptop, but for now I'm more comfy running win7 on my primary. I'll look at Superfetch in any event.
past 2 days, only running ms resource monitor when idle, it runs 19 threads and uses very little cpu and no memory leak.
EDIT: and read about Cortana too.

 

[yitworths]

running win7x64. I do have win10 on a laptop, but for now I'm more comfy running win7 on my primary. I'll look at Superfetch in any event.
past 2 days, only running ms resource monitor when idle, it runs 19 threads and uses very little cpu and no memory leak.

do you suspect any process in particular? if you do then you may use data collector set to gather info about it such as memory usage, processor usage etc. Anyhow, you really are facing a peculiar situation. btw, do you still have screensaver enabled?

 

[simmerskool]

the one current process that appears to "leak" is comodo killswitch, but it not something I have to run. It is a feature of comodo firewall which I run at cruelsister config. Not running screensaver very often, and when I do it's a win7 built-in one. When I do run it, not seeing leak as long as killswitch is not running too.

 

[yitworths]

the one current process that appears to "leak" is comodo killswitch, but it not something I have to run. It is a feature of comodo firewall which I run at cruelsister config. Not running screensaver very often, and when I do it's a win7 built-in one. When I do run it, not seeing leak as long as killswitch is not running too.

I'm not saying screensaver is causing the 'leak' or high memory usage. You may check the post #8, there are certain process which only gets triggered when computer is in idle mode because those processes demand high resource usage. & to detect computer's idle mode it either uses system's lock screen or screensaver. So, when it finds screensaver is running for a while it may get triggered & in turn you see d surge in mem usage.
tbh, we don't have enough info about your pc's config. To pinpoint d culprit we need much more info. But, I think you'll be eventually able to detect the root cause this problem, so I ain't asking for any other info.I would like to suggest to disable screensaver. Just give it a try.